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Home>Calendar>Talks>John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art and Community Celebration>Session III: “Blackness is not peripheral to the American project; it is the foundation”

Left: Renée Stout-Photograph courtesy of the artist
Center: Hank Willis Thomas-Photograph by Andrea Blanch
Right: Clint Smith-Photograph by Carletta Girma

“Blackness is not peripheral to the American project; it is the foundation”

Session III

John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art and Community Celebration

  • Thursday, April 28, 2022
  • 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
  • Virtual
  • Registration Required
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Presentations on the role of history and memory in shaping American culture and identity by Clint Smith, Renée Stout, and Hank Willis Thomas. Followed with discussion moderated by E. Carmen Ramos, chief curatorial and conservation officer, National Gallery of Art.

Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America (2021); poet, staff writer at The Atlantic, and host of the YouTube series Crash Course Black American History

Renée Stout, artist

Hank Willis Thomas, artist and cofounder of For Freedoms

Session topic inspired by Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America (Boston: Little, Brown, 2021).

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